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October 31, 2011

Camping near Zion

Brent had fall break a few weeks ago so we packed up Saturday morning and drove down to Southern Utah. We chose Zion because it was the warmest place in Utah at the time. We found a great spot.
Brent had read that there was lots of BLM land to camp on at the top of Smith Mesa, just kinda outside of the south entrance of Zion Park which sounded great. We found what we thought was Smith mesa and the coolest campground ever! As time went on, though, we realized we weren't where we thought we were.
It turned out that we atop Hurricane Mesa which is home to the Hurricane Test Track, an old test ground for ejections seats and supersonic aircraft. After all was said and done, Brent checked our campground location with respect to property boundaries and realized we were technically outside the BLM boundary by 150 feet. I don't think anyone would mind though. No one said anything, we didn't cross any of the tresspassing signs, we loved the place and we'd readily camp there again.

While Brent was moving rocks around to make a fire he discovered this cute little lizard. After overcoming initial hesitations about touching the lizard Chico became best friends with this little guy and took him everywhere he went. Every emotion Chico was feeling, the lizard apparently felt too.

The night before we had a ward party that Chico got his face painted at. He loved his tiger nose and whiskers and he looked quite adorable. :)

After a long cold night it was finally morning and the sun was coming up as we tried to get warm by the fire.

Chico of course got right to work digging while we made breakfast.

After a scrumptious pancake, bacon, and egg breakfast we got ready for church. Brent forgot his church clothes, we felt a little bit dumb walking in looking like such a ragamuffin crew. But we made it to Sacrament meeting and then left to go visit the Saint George Temple Visitor's Center and walk around the grounds. It was beautiful, and we really enjoyed the messages we heard at the Visitor's Center.

The boys were SO full of energy and had fun wrestling with us on the grass.

I love this next picture...

The rest of Sunday was spent lizard hunting and relaxing at camp. We lost the first lizard we caught which devastated Chico. Brent caught a second lizard. This one was a baby so he was pretty small. In fact he somehow escaped through one of the air holes Brent had made in the tupperware we were keeping him in. Luckily Brent caught him again and we actually still have him as our very first pet we've ever owned.

The next morning we packed up camp because we would spend all of Monday hiking. Then we drove away from our beautiful plateau that we had camped on.

Quick story from later that day after our hike I saw people coming off the trail and laughing as they saw our 4Runner with toys on the top. They knew that it was our car because we were the only ones with toddlers on the hike.

Zion is so majestic and beautiful. After we got a map at Zion we realized that the hike we actually wanted was back off of I-15 at the Kolob area. So we had to backtrack which wasted a little bit of time, but it was still nice to get to see Zion.

So, we finally started off on our hike. Look how cute our Chico is!

We read the sign at the beginning of the hike that talked about what wildlife is in the area. I was just getting done repeating it Chico, "We'll possibly see mule deer, lizards, eagles..." and Brent laughs and points to the ground and says, "and apparently tarantulas!"
No joke, we were not even 50 feet into the hike and we see a giant tarantula. We were trying to figure out how to illustrate how big that sucker was so we put down our key and he crawled over it. Our key is pretty big but we don't feel like it properly shows how big it was.

So yeah, that was pretty exciting and Chico had fun telling everyone we passed on the trail that we saw it. Most of the people we told thought he said, "dinosaur" instead of tarantula but we were always quick to translate. Only one other couple had seen one too.

And of course he's got to climb a bit while we're hiking.

And throw some rocks into the stream.

Isn't this a cool rock formation?!

Brent thought this rock looked like a big tongue but Chico thought it looked more like a big table for eating "hamburgers" at.

There is nothing like BEING there. We're getting a little better at capturing things on the camera that we see, but we still find ourselves wanting. You just can't capture what it's like to BE there. That's why we love hiking so much. It's always an incredible time.

And we just love spending time with each other and the kids. Chico says the cutest things and learns so much on our hikes. I'm so glad I married Brent, he is my best friend and the best travel companion I could ask for. He is SUCH a good dad.

And he's a pretty dang good photographer too...

This next picture shows Chico sweetly picking up this big tree branch so that Brent could get by easier. Is that not the cutest!? A guy on the trail saw Chico do that and turned to me with an impressed look on his face and said, "That kid's got a future."

And then we made it. After 2.5 miles and about 40 shallow stream crossings on the way up, we finally made it to the double alcove arches.

It echoed really cool which kinda weirded out the kids at first (see pic of Chico below). But they eventually liked it and we ate our dinner there and then headed back.

It was a good hike all around. We met some cool people originally from Russia, then some people from Nevada, and from another part of the country. We learned about "scouring reed" and pondered on the "mansanita leafs". Never saw any lizards but we did see some deer tracks. Didn't see another tarantula until we were packing up in the parking lot. Could be the same tarantula we saw at the beginning though. Brent was crazy and picked it up on the end of a long stick. We didn't keep it though, I do have my limits. :) After that we drove the rest of the way home. It was a long drive but not as miserable of a time staying awake as we normally have.

It was a much needed vacation during this hard long semester!

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About Me

Welcome to my blog, a snippet of our daily activities from the viewpoint of our lens. I blog because it helps me document the joys I find in our every day, because life is full of things worth remembering. My wonderful husband, Brent, and I have 3 kids, who on this blog are called "Chico", "Griz", and "Sanna". I get to stay home with them during the day. When I can catch a spare minute I oil paint, digital scrapbook, craft, and try out new recipes. We recently relocated our family to Oregon where my husband works as a PA.